Hotel Sole

I would adivse all travellers to avoid this hotel - the owner tried to exercise a personal vendetta gainst me and my girlfriend.

We arrived around mid day on the Saturday, and from the moment that we arrived at the hotel the manager was at best rather surly. However, given the wonderful setting overlooking the lake we did not dwell on this and got on with enjoying our holiday.

On Tuesday we spent the day pottering around Limone and came back to the hotel in the afternoon. Whilst we were walking through the bar area, the manager approached us saying that 'we must explain something'. He pulled out one of the bedsheets which had some residue from a fake tan that my girlfriend had been using. We explained that this was a make up based product and that it would come out in a normal wash - he claimed that he had tried to wash it twice and that if we 'damaged' any more sheets we would have to pay for them and told my grilfriend to wash properly. We were quite embarrased by this incident and went up to our room (I dread to think what he would have done if it was a genuine 'accident' by an old or young guest and he had pulled their sheets out in front of the whole bar in this way).

The manager then ignored us for the rest of the holiday until the Friday morning at breakfast where he marched over to our table and presented a bill for 80 euros for damage to the sheets.

At this point we called the rep (who was very helpful). This resulted in a huge and embarrasing argument in the bar between ourselves and the rep and the manager. He accused us of lying and said that we had agreed to pay for all damage caused (although these were in fact the same sheets that he had brought out earlier in the week), he also said that we had 'brought the problems on ourselves' (although why was never explained).

The rep agreed to take the sheets away and wash them in her appartment - which he was very opposed to. We felt very uncomfortable staying in the hotel so left and booked in to the Hotel Limone for our last night (which was very nice with very friendly staff)

Incidentally, after one wash all of the make up came out of the sheets. My conclusions from this were either,
1) He was trying to con us and has tried this scam before on other young couples who he thinks will pay up without arguing
2) The hotel does not wash its sheets properly (he claimed they had washed the sheets twice) as in evry other hotel that I have staid in they can get pretty much anything out - let alone make up!

Neither explanation is very encouraging!

I asked the rep whether they had had any other issues with the hotel. She said that they had, but that most of the problems had been with his mother who was apprarently even worse - so maybe we got off lighty!